off the corner of no man's land
by AfterReign
Summary: It's you, the local cryptid, and God. (Alternatively: Piko, along with eight other people, have the worst road trip ever.)


**This wasn't supposed to be a fanfic.**

 **I guess that's kind of a sad thought since I hadn't posted fanfiction here since the end of my sophomore year. Even the last story I wrote here was pretty short. It turns out that my real motivation is not myself but the fear of not turning in something for a grade…**

 **I don't want you to think I'm totally inactive, though. I have been posting fanfiction; it just unfortunately breaks FFN guidelines. You can find my recent fic on AO3, titled 'hatsune miku vs. the world & knuckles: the electric boogaloo™'! … It's a lot, I know, but it's quirky, fun, and overall, pretty meme-y.**

 **I'm also just more active on my writing Tumblr, magkorona, where I post both fanfics and original stories alike. I recently posted an original horror story called 'birthday cakes', which is NOT related to my fic 'Birthday Wishes'. To be honest, though, I like 'subway to asphodel' way better.**

 **I would like to thank FiniteXS for taking their time to beta this and stringer-nuka for the beautiful cover art! Please check both of them out! The artwork will be linked on my profile.**

 **With that, I hope you enjoy what you're about to read, as I enjoyed writing this story. Thank you!**

 **TW: SELF HARM**

* * *

"Cut yourself, Yufu."

The girl in white pauses before a horrified expression blooms across her features. All eight of us stand, uneasy, and—

No, not all. Not him. Len, of course, is dauntless Len, holding a shiny razor out towards my cousin Yufu as if he's offering a mere candy bar to a naive child. Then again, it's not like we _aren't_ naive; the drying cuts on my ankle say enough.

Still, Yufu blubbers and stutters and does everything in between. "I-I don't know, Len." Then, Yufu turns, as if searching for a way out. "Can't we just use pig's blood? I'm sure my family wouldn't mind missing a pig."

Len wags his finger at her. It should be playful, but it's more dubious than anything. "Oh, Yufu," he tuts. "Don't be so dour. It wouldn't be a good prank if it wasn't _real_ human blood!"

"But that's what it is. It's a prank!" she argues feebly. "It's not supposed to be real… Shion-san shouldn't be charged with murder. He didn't kill anyone."

A hush. The silence feels heavier than expected, but Yufu still quivers and shivers. The braver among us shake their head. Luka, one of the brave, clicks her tongue. "He did kill someone," she warns. "He murdered Len's mom."

Before Yufu can speak, Fukase, who holds his bloody wrist in a tight fist, cuts in. "How would she know? Be easy on her, Luka! She's the new girl."

Luka scoffs. "She can be the new girl for so long, dumbass. Piko—" Electricity shoots down my spine. "—why didn't you educate Yufu on the horrors of the Bird Watcher?"

Beads of sweat trail down my forehead, and I panic. Anxiety swells up inside me, filling me to the brim, as if I'm a human balloon ready to explode. And god, do I want to.

Of course I never told her. Why would I? Why should I? I thought it was a kept secret, like the ones little girls whisper to each other's ears in the midst of a sleepover. We'd quiet when our parents pass by, watchful eyes trailing our pajama-dressed backs before they return to wherever they came from. And then I'd feel it again—a hot breath against my ear, the quiet mumbling of sophomoric jokes. Pathetically, I muster an apologetic look briefly directed to my distraught cousin before focusing it on Len.

Len, who shushes my thoughts with a fulgent smile. Len, who swiftly moves besides Yufu, a dexterous hand twirling the razor, and positions his mouth near her trembling ear. Len, who whispers sweet nothings to her—and they really are just nothing—and unfolds Yufu's hand to place the razor in her sweaty palm. Len, who lifts Yufu's white dress, blue underwear peeking out to the rest of us idly standing there, and—

Yufu plunges the silver razor into her fatty thigh, and she _howls_ , tears threatening to fall from gray eyes. Drops of scarlet drip into the discolored bucket, a soft _pitter patter_ as each bead hits the bottom. It takes a few minutes before Yufu collapses against Len, all pale-faced and weak-kneed, with bubbling tears soaking her cheeks. A calloused hand crawls under Yufu's dress and tactlessly pulls at the razor. As an onslaught of scarlet cascades into the metal, Yufu lets out a muffled sob.

"You're… you're making it—" I start, but Luka kicks me in my ankle—my _cut_ ankle, of all places—and the stinging pain pulsating in the lower part of my leg shuts me up. Hissing, I shoot Luka a glare, but all she offers me is a facetious, almost cartoonish hair flip.

"And we're done!" a girl sporting a cap—Mayu, was it?—cheers, clapping her bloody hands. Red leaks down her thin arms. "Now we have everyone's blood. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

There's a unanimous cheer among us, yet it's a tired one at best and a glib one at worst. One by one, we file out of the old shack, our cuts messily bandaged. The ones that hold a candle for Len stride out proudly, with ripped pieces of Len's shirt around their slit wrists and ankles. It's a fashion trend I assume won't catch on among the crowd.

As for the rest, they speedily cover their self-inflicted wounds with rolls of athletic tape. They then bustle out of the run-down shack, and I can't tell if it's out of shame or something else.

Soon, it's just the three of us: Yufu, Len, and myself. The silence is restless, turning over and over on the makeshift bed of our little lies. It pushes me out of the shack after a beat, my feet padding away to the exit. Even as I leave, however, I can still hear the hot whisper of the Devil, as he lies to my cousin, "Thank you, Yufu… for being the last."

When I'm outside, that ripped cloth around my ankle only seems to taunt me

I don't tell her I'm the first.

* * *

For someone as ingenious as Len, the plan does feel lackluster. "We throw the buckets of blood at the Bird Watcher and run like hell," is what he said, yet I still feel like a complete nimrod, hiding behind some tree and waiting for the Bird Watcher to pop out of thin air. Besides me is Fukase, who busies himself with carving into the tree with a stolen knife and making fart noises.

If the Bird Watcher isn't going to kill us, Len sure will.

"Hey, hey!" Fukase shakes me with his blade-wielding hand, and I yelp. After realizing I'm not going to be killed (which is a damn shame, to be frank), I inwardly groan and give him the best glare my tired self can manage through my ski mask. "Oh, don't give me _that_ ," Fukase chides. This time, he nudges me, playful. "Just wanna ask ya something!"

" _What?_ " The question, if I can even call it that, comes out more like a statement. "What the hell do you want, Fukase?"

"The embrace of death," he sighs dreamily before snorting. He stabs his knife through the tree we're hiding behind, splintering the black birch. "But nah. I just wanna know… Why?"

"Why?" I echo.

Fukase gives a vague gesture to our surroundings, as if his answer lies in plain sight. "Why are you here? Why are you bleeding out for good ol' Len? What got you going?"

It's a good question really, even if it isn't worded the best way. Sometimes, I think it's obvious; do they not see the way I stare at his nape during geometry? Do they not hear my heart stop when he wrings his arm around my neck after a good lap around the school? Do they not know, or do they pretend to be blind?

I shrug. "Some are doing it for the dough, but I have enough yen on me. Can't blame them, though; the Shimoda family is loaded, even with the death of 'Madam Shimoda' hanging over them." Mindlessly, I scratch the back of my head, wondering how long I can prolong embarrassing myself in front of some kid I barely know. "And there are the people who are doing this because they can. I'm going to assume you're one of them?"

If he notices my roundabout answer, he doesn't say anything about it. "Kinda, I guess," he says, mirroring my shrug. "I already cut myself at home since my family doesn't care. Wanted help; never got it. So, I thought I could cut myself for the greater good, ya know?"

I wouldn't say that… whatever Len's scheme is is for the better of humanity, but Fukase's words sound noble to my ear, if not morbid. Is it the thrill of Len's plan talking? Or is it the fact that I'm being useful to him that something scalding hot is boiling in my stomach? Either way, it makes me feel like my reason is a whole lot of bull shit.

But what's even more bull shit than that? "I did it because I love him," sounds way too Shakespearean for my taste. He's not Romeo, and I'm no Juliet. If anything, if we're two lonely people lost in an author's gaudy words, then we wouldn't have names. Our lives are too short to be branded by reckless people, ending in a couple mere pages. We'd give ourselves titles instead.

The Devil suits him, I think. And I the—

"—fool," finishes Fukase, gripping his knife and pulling it out of the black birch tree with a huff. "You're kinda dumb for liking him, but I get it. You wanna get some, and Len isn't that half bad looking outta the rest of us. Your cousin Yufu really wants to hit it, too."

I don't bother to hide my cringe.

Fukase taps my shoulder and points to the tree we're hiding behind. Initially confused, I soon realize he's been carving something all this time. A carved heart in the black birch wood reads, 'Piko + Len' mocking me where I stand.

Suddenly, Fukase savagely lunges at the tree, dragging his knife straight through the unsymmetrical heart. The cut pierces deeper than the rest of the carving, but maybe that's the point. He twists the dull blade into the black birch until it comes off with a clean snap. The separated handle falls cleanly from his knicked hand.

"But still," Fukase laughs, but there's no mirth, "you really are a fool."

* * *

When the Bird Watcher comes to the entrance of the forest, we throw the buckets of blood at him.

Then, Len, dauntless Len, takes my hand, and we run.

* * *

Yufu cries when we drive away in the beaten up, pickup truck. "It's only a few days," I want to tell her so she shuts up, but I don't have the heart to. Or lack thereof, I guess.

One of the girls, Teto, does. She kicks Yufu's slumped back until Yufu's sobs fade into distant, infrequent hiccups. I feel her hand gripping my torn sleeve as a form of solace, but she doesn't deserve it. None of us do.

"Why are you crying?" Mayu asks, but that effervescent giggle seeping into her voice is an unwelcome stranger to us all. "You're silly, Yufu. We all did a _Carrie_ on him. So, why are you crying like you didn't? You aren't more innocent than the rest of us."

Murmurs of agreement rumble in back of the truck. With all six of us squished together (the other three, Len included, are piled in the front), it's hard not to hear such an aggressive confrontation, especially when it's coming from Mayu of all people.

"Just how did Shion-san kill Len's mom?" questions Yufu once she regains her bearings. The back goes dead silent, but she continues on, as if she hasn't stepped on the landmine that is the life story of Shimoda Len. "I don't understand… I don't… Nobody told me anything!"

I barely hold back my screams. _Then why did you follow? Why are you even here?_

"He ran her over." A girl named Iroha blankly stares at Yufu, brushing her fingers against the paint-chipped metal of the truck. "Something like this truck, I'm sure. The Bird Watcher was probably watching birds or something, and then, _splat_. There goes Lenny's mom's head. And like, everything else."

A boy named Lui pipes in. "The Bird Watcher got charged with involuntary manslaughter, so he only got ten months in jail. To be honest, though, we all know it was on purpose. I mean, have you seen the guy? Talk about a kooky, old man."

Something in Lui's voices spur us to move past Yufu and Mayu's little incident. We do talk about the kooky, old man—the Bird Watcher at the edge of the forest. Sharing stories, I allow myself to drown in images of the Bird Watcher feeding pigeons and sparrows in the woods before swallowing them whole or of him leading little, unsuspecting children to a grave of plucked, bloody feathers. It's fantasy, I know, but it's real to them.

I turn away from the huddled group, redirecting my gaze to familiar sapphire eyes reflected in the truck's crooked mirror. Len winks deviously; I blush, but whether it be shame or embarrassment, I can't tell.

He's a fantasy to everyone, I know, but he's real to me.

* * *

My 'reality' is under me.

As Len presses fervent kisses against my slit ankle, his calloused hand massaging the upper part of my calf, I moan quietly. We're in the comforts of the pickup truck, just off the corner of No Man's Land, and I've never felt better.

"Good boy. You did so good," he praises in between each calculated, ignominious smooch. His fingers crawl up to the meat of my thigh. "You were the best watch dog I could ever ask for. Such a good boy."

I feel myself surge in undeserved pride, even when I see specks of Teto's mascara decorating his albino cheeks. I feel myself grin from one red ear to another, even when Len stinks of what Iroha excuses as a name-brand perfume. I feel myself being… finally, _truly_ myself, even when Yufu's peach lip gloss coats a trail of bruising hickeys on his fair skin, the path of kiss marks travelling down under.

When he bites my ankle, impish teeth digging into all my scabs, I find myself enjoying the pain, too.

* * *

"He's dead," Luka says, hollow.

With little effort, she chucks her flip phone to the dirt, and we scramble for it like mad men, piling on top of each other's sweaty bodies. The question of why we're fighting for the same thing when we're all on the same boat doesn't occur to me. Miraculously, I grab the old phone first and open it with the top of my chewed up nail. The dimly lit screen shushes us, and I scan the following text message:

 _To: YOU_  
 _From: Miku 3  
THE BIRDWATCHERS DEAD THEY FOUND YOUR BLOOD ON HIM WHERE ARE YOU LUKA? LUKA PLEASE YOU CANT BE DEAD PLEASE TELL ME YOURE OK I LOVE YOU SO MUCH LUKA BABY PLEASE_

It takes me a moment before I realize I stopped breathing, and for once, I struggle finding air. The rest near me share the same sentiments, holding back gasps of terror. That is, until all hell breaks loose, and one of us _shrieks_.

"Oh my god." Teto stands up, her legs trembling. Soon, she pulls at her frizzled hair, ruby strands already falling out, and shrieks again. Jet black mascara stains her flushed face the more she cries. "Did we kill him?! Are we going to jail?! Len, on Jesus's name, promise we didn't _kill_ the freaking Bird Watcher!"

It's out of character of me, but upon getting up from the ground, I place my hand on Teto's shoulder in hopes it'd calm her down. "Teto," I plead in the most reassuring tone I can manage, "let's try to talk this through—"

 _Crack_. I fall to the dirt floor, yowling, as I cradle what feels like broken pieces of my face. My eyes are screwed impossibly shut. Hot liquid spurts out of my nose, a boiling geyser smack dab in the middle of my aching face, right into my shaking hands, and all the curse words I can think of off the top of my bruised head—ranging from "shit, shit, shit" to "you fucking bitch"—follow suit.

Somebody claps. "Gosh, Teto," who I assume to be Lui whistles. He steps closer to my crumpled body, and I shiver upon hearing the crunch of autumn leaves underneath his boat shoes. "You really did a number on him!" Lui vocalizes, impressed. I do little to shoo him away when he carefully nudges me with his left foot. "I never knew you could elbow someone so hard before. Oh, but please don't punch me next."

"This is not the time to be joking around," Luka deadpans. Her voice is concrete. "What this was supposed to be was a prank—an _extreme_ one—but still a prank. But now the Bird Watcher is dead, and the town thinks so are we. We… This wasn't worth the money, Len. We have to go back."

"Um, don't you remember that the whole point of this was to make the town _think_ we're dead?" who I believe to be Mayu points out. I mean, it's either her or some squeaky, talking chipmunk. The eye roll is evident in her voice. "We wanted to see if we could frame the guy. And we _did_. Why not keep this prank up? No reason to step forward right now, right?"

"You're wrong."

There's surprising steel in Fukase's voice. The gregariousness of what I've grown accustomed to is nowhere in reach. Instead, Fukase is simmering with something I can't place. "I dunno about the lot of you, but I knew that what I—what _we_ did was a crime. Somehow, we'd all be found out and get charged with… I don't know, assault. I was fine with that, to be honest. But now the situation is different than we thought it'd be. We wanted him framed for murder, not fucking gutted. Or… was this your plan all along, Len?"

A quiet, dark chuckle. Scuffing of battered sneakers. Shared murmurs amongst the group. The clang of a knife when it's unsheathed, and a long, long scream.

I can't tell if it's me or everyone else.

I don't think I want to.

* * *

When I wake up, the first thing that strikes me as odd is what exactly am I waking up from? Being unconscious, I guess. I didn't even realize I was knocked out cold until my eyes flutter open to the expanse of a cloudless sky. The birds don't sing anymore. Instead, silence overcasts everything around me; I just never knew it could be so deafening.

Groggy, I pick my sore limbs off the soil. There's a certain stiffness to my face, and when I place a dirty hand on what I assume is my broken ass nose, the rough, crusted blood that brushes against my fingertips doesn't startle me in the slightest. I groan, praying that someone had been smart enough to bring a first aid kit on our a little road trip.

"Wakey wakey!" sings a happy Mayu, more so than usual. She twirls around me, a strange, exalted breath of life in her step. Her chiffon dress is scathed and nicked and stained in a strange, brown liquid. Seeing that I'm awake, she giggles, placing a chaste kiss on my soiled cheek. "Corpses and bakey!"

Immediately, a pungent odor overfills my nostrils, and I _gag_. It's godawful, something akin to roadkill doused in aged horse piss. Grey fumes of smoke filter into the blue sky, stinging my bloodshot eyes, as a dancing, saturated flame unfurls across gathered logs of wood. And there, turning and turning over the burning fire, is Fukase's severed head, once lively eyes bulging at me with a blank look.

Acid bubbles up in my sore throat, and I vomit. Ghastly liquids pour out of my mouth, as tears spill onto my bruised cheeks and into the dirt. I almost don't register the soft hand on my shoulder until a tenor voice rings in my ear.

"Oh, Piko," Len says lovingly. "I made you breakfast. Won't you have a bite?"

And like a fool, I nod to his beat.

* * *

Luka is dead.

Teto is dead.

Fukase is dead.

And for what?

* * *

When we were telling stories about the Bird Watcher, I knew they were all lies. What they said are the urban legends of that cursed town, of the local cryptid wandering about the darkened streets. I had no tales they wanted to hear. The truth isn't as mystical as the fantasies everybody else conjures up.

The Bird Watcher was no other-worldly murderer born from the shadows. He didn't swallow singing birds in one fell swoop nor did he lure young children to feathery graves. He wasn't the creature in the closet; he was one of us.

His name was Shion Kaito. He tilled the fields and plucked every head of wheat his old eyes could spot. He ordered his scrambled egg whites and a cup hot cocoa at the diner and chewed on the toothpicks. He went to the grocery store to a buy a quart of almond milk and chugged it before anyone could stop him.

My mother knew him long before he gained such an infamous title. She had told me once that he didn't solely want to just feed the birds in the forest. In fact, he despised the lot of them, yet the birds loved him all the same. So, he fed them, wasting away his yen on feathered creatures that couldn't possibly understand the mysteries surrounding the elusive Bird Watcher.

But before he was known for birds flocking towards his crooked back, before he was what small children spoke in terror of, he was Shion Kaito, who was in love. In love with his best friend Kamui Gakupo, who killed himself in the same very forest Shion-san still visited until the day the Devil dragged him down under.

"He thinks he'll see him," my mother said in hushed tones on one of the many nights she tucked me into bed. "He believes if he keeps feeding the birds at the same time of night Kamui-san killed himself, his best friend will be in his arms once again. He thinks the birds will carry Kamui-san's spirit on their feathered backs because they too loved Kamui-san as much as Shion-san does. That's why Shion-san always goes to the same very forest at the same very time, whether it be through rain or snow. Isn't that just plain sad?"

"It is sad," I want to tell her now. "It really is."

* * *

"I didn't murder him, you know," Len says coolly in the shell of my ear after we fucked. His heated body presses closer to mine, an arm loosely wrapped around my nude waist. His voice drops low. "I wanted to, of course. I bet that man was drowning in sins. He 'accidentally' killed my mom? What bullshit. Just how many more did he 'accidentally' kill? I should reward whoever killed the bastard."

I don't answer him. With my naked back turned away, I wait, my index finger brainlessly tapping the blanket underneath us. I told him I wanted him desperately, and he gave it to me in the quiet of an abandoned, broken down farm. Being fucked in some barn after eating a human being isn't what I imagined my first time to be, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.

"I suppose we are murderers, too," Len continues. "But Luka? Teto? Fukase? They wanted to kill us. Kill _this_." His grip on me promptly tightens. "We would be rotting in some shitty jail cell, and now that we just fucked to our hearts' content? I think I'd die if I had to let something good like you go."

My blood runs cold. "Really?"

A pause. Len speaks with caution, "Yes?"

"Would you miss me, Len?" I ask, urgent. "Would you cry over my hollow corpse? Would you, Len, dauntless Len, visit the makeshift grave I made for my sorry self every single fucking day, whether it be through rain or snow, and delude yourself into thinking you'd see the face you missed oh so much ever again?"

When we hear the engine of a pickup truck come to life with a buzzing whine, I laugh, sadder than I've ever been. "No, Len. I think you wouldn't."

Pure anger dawns on Len's perfect face, and he clouts me right in the back of the head. Scrambling, he shimmies into his wrinkled clothes, a loud mantra of f-bombs spilling from the lips I was kissing moments ago. Len, with no time to spare, bolts out to see what's going on.

I'm slower in comparison. Pain pulsating equally in my head and my ass, I gingerly pick myself up, putting my clothes on with speeds equivalent of a sloth. I limp to the entrance of the barn, one tentative leg in front of the other.

When I reach the outside, Len is screaming his pretty, little head off, a wild look in his eyes and a sharp knife in his hand. Lui and Iroha stand firm, however, wielding razor blades or farming tools stolen from the barn. Mayu's body lies crumpled on the ground in between them, slender limbs angled in ways they shouldn't be. Her head is bashed in from behind, oozing out crimson, but at least there's a small smile on her discolored face. Peaceful, even.

Behind them is a frightful Yufu in her white, tattered dress, just waiting to go back home and hide away from the rest of the world. Her hands shake but still grip the steering wheel before her. Briefly, she musters what seems to be an apologetic look towards me, tears threatening to fall from her eyes, as if this is not my half-assed plan but hers.

"Go, Yufu," I finally tell her after all this time. "Go."

* * *

 **… I wrote this in between playing Love Live! and watching videos about brutal teen murders. I wonder if that says anything about me.**

 **For those who are confused: Piko, along with Yufu; Fukase; Mayu; Luka; Teto; Iroha; & Lui, follows Len's crazy "prank" to frame the Bird Watcher a.k.a. Kaito for murdering them. Len wants everybody to use their own blood, so it'll look and act like the real thing. After they enact their plan, they all disperse before driving out of town in a pickup truck and telling stories about Kaito. Piko knows the stories are fake but doesn't say anything. The rest also tell Yufu that Len hates Kaito because Kaito accidentally killed Len's mom. Len doesn't believe it's an accident, though.**

 **Piko and Len get closer, and Piko is happy even though he knows Len is already sleeping with Teto, Iroha, and Yufu. Luka then gets a text from her girlfriend Miku that Kaito has been found dead and the town thinks so are they. There's dissonance in the group that ends with Piko getting a broken nose and Luka, Teto, & Fukase getting killed (presumably by Mayu and Len). When Piko wakes up from being knocked unconscious, Len makes Piko eat Fukase for breakfast.**

 **Piko decides to plan against Len because he never wanted blood on his hands but his own. He has Len fuck him while everyone else that's not Mayu secure the pick up truck to go back to town. When Len realizes what's happening, the two go outside to see Mayu dead, Lui and Iroha standing their ground, and Yufu in the truck. Piko tells Yufu to leave without them.**

 **… Whew, that's a lot for a tldr.**

 **My version of this for school is written for my expository writing class, but the idea for this came from a case I had to make for a forensics lab. That case focused more on what happened to Kaito. Surprise, surprise because Len didn't actually kill him; Kaai Yuki accidentally did through poisoned sunflower seeds. Yuki died, too. Mew, Yuki's step mom, wanted to kill Yuki but didn't know Yuki would share her sunflower seeds with Kaito, so there's that.**

 **Only Yufu ever came back to town. I'll let you decide what happens to the rest.**

 **Thank you for reading! I can't promise I'll be posting a lot on FFN due to my main project breaking the guidelines, so please check my work at afterreign on AO3 or magkorona on Tumblr. With that, I hope you enjoy your day!**


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